The days following the end of the college basketball season are important ones when it comes to the future of a program. Decisions have to be made by players with the potential to move on to the professional ranks, whether it’s to enter the NBA Draft or return to school for another season.

With the NCAA deadline to withdraw one’s name from the draft coming less than two weeks after the national title game, players and their families don’t have a great deal of time to decide their next move.

But for the programs involved, preparations for a possible departure begin well in advance of this period.

One school in that position this spring was Colorado, whose standout forward André Roberson had a tough decision to make. Roberson was one of the nation’s best forwards, as his defensive versatility and rebounding prowess played a pivotal role in head coach Tad Boyle’s ability to revive the CU basketball program. With averages of 10.9 points and 11.2 rebounds per contest, Roberson managed to earn first-team All-Pac 12 honors for the second consecutive season.

The dilemma for the 6-7 Roberson: would he be better served from a skill standpoint to spend another season in Boulder, or should he make the move to the professional ranks with the idea of expanding his offensive repertoire at that level? In what was a tough decision, Roberson decided just before the NBA’s draft withdrawal deadline to go pro. And using the later deadline is something that happened by design, with the CU program encouraging Roberson to take all the time he needed to make an important decision such as this one.

“I think in André’s case it was one of those situations where he wanted to see who declared and who didn’t declare,” Boyle told NBCSports.com in a phone interview. “I think waiting until the end of the process makes the most sense because you have a better feel of who’s coming back to college and who isn’t.

“I think that makes good business sense and it was something that André was smart to do.”

With Roberson no longer in the plans for 2013-14, the next step for Boyle and his staff was the figure out how they would go about accounting for the loss of one of the best players in school history. The fact of the matter is that from a recruiting standpoint this process began last summer.

“If you’re waiting until the spring to replace a guy like André Roberson you’re going to be left holding an empty bag,” said Boyle. “We actually started in the fall with the idea that could happen. And as a college coach, I know that if kids are close and it’s going to come down to one of those ‘down to the wire’ decisions it’s more often than not going to tip towards the NBA.

“We recruit with the idea that [the player leaving] is going to happen. If that doesn’t happen, you have to be ready for that as well.”

When it comes to recruiting to the the possibility of a player leaving school early, every school has a different strategy. While you’d be hard-pressed to find a school willing to make promises in regards to playing time, some schools are more open than others when it comes to discussing the various scenarios with recruits.

“For our staff, when we recruit we try to be fully transparent,” said Boyle. “We try to talk about what could happen, what might happen and what most likely what will happen. Obviously, there’s no guarantee and there’s no 100% certainty.”

To this point Boyle brought up the recruitment of incoming freshman Dustin Thomas, a 6-8 forward from Texarkana, Texas. Had Roberson made the decision to return to Boulder for his senior season, there was the possibility of Thomas redshirting (as Wesley Gordon did last year) or seeing limited minutes as a freshman.

But with Roberson off to the professional ranks, there’s now the opportunity for Thomas to come in and earn minutes as a freshman. Colorado also received a commitment from 6-6 forward George King in the spring, with his decision coming in mid-May. It would be unfair to expect one player to account for Roberson’s production next season. But the combination of newcomers and returnees (Xavier Johnson and Josh Scott lead the way) gives Colorado a number of players who are capable doing so by committee.

The recruiting process is one that never stops, and while some programs may be able to recruit five-star prospects as if they’re rolling in on an assembly line that isn’t the case for all. When it comes to the early entry process, how a program recruits becomes even more important. The programs that experience consistent success plan accordingly for early departures, beginning their work well before the April deadlines are on the horizon.